In the Field

By mid-June the breeding activity of birds around our cabin is starting to taper slightly, but wildlflowers, caterpillars and butterflies are hitting their highest densities and activity levels. So my head and eyeline naturally starts to tilt down from the canopy towards the ground! And, the macro lenses start to come out.

I found this caterpillar (which I've never identified) while it was working its way around this yellow paintbrush flower. I found the texture of the bristles and the bold, contrasting colours along the caterpillar's back visually interesting.

The photographic challenge of capturing this image was the "normal" issue faced when doing macro work - how much of the image did I want in sharp focus (and what aperture did I need to select to produce the depth-of-field)? Because I was using a longish focal length micro lens, I was forced to close the aperture down quite far (and farther than I normally do) to ensure that at least the front half of the caterpillar was in sharp focus).